Just so you know, I'm an entrepreneurial rock star in the making. Hungry, stubborn and broke (not completely but I'm not self-suffecient). But that doesn't mean I'm not willing to buy my wife some bling. Watchout peeples! I learned from the best.

Update 2-14-2007:
I still can't believe I ever put this post up... I'm more like an idiot than a rock star, just ask my wife.

Google has purchased the aptly-named Silicon Valley startup Upstartle. Upstartle is best known for it's web-based word processing software,
Writely
, which allows users to create documents online and share them with others.

The move puts Google in direct competition with Word software from Microsoft and signals the intention of Google to expand its reach into Microsoft products.

According to Bloomberg, while Microsoft is already testing small-business software that is delivered over the Internet, the company is not offering word processing software that is delivered using the Web.

While terms of the deal were not disclosed, it is my belief the four employees of Upstartle will be moving to a higher tax bracket in the near future.

Online gaming revenue is expected to more than triple by 2011, according to DFC Intelligence.

This is great news for marketers since you have a desirable demographic (under 35) who spend hours interacting connected through their PCs, which dominate the category. Subscription services are expected to dominate the category, but if done right, advertising revenues could provide nearly half of the revenue.

Product placement within the games as well as interactive advertising on the online services themselves can deliver a barrage of alcohol, car, and food ads. (I'd probably forget the clothes aspect since online gamers aren't known for following fashion trends.)

Another thought -- will there be a MySpace for gamers coming from Sony or EA?

This is generally not the kind of Hilton-related info you get on the net. I do think there is a way to marry some of Paris' online-exploits to a multi-national online marketing campaign. Hilton execs...give me a call. We'll talk.

As part of a continued effort get more of its customers booking online Hilton has launched dozens of microsites designed for specific audiences.

Bala Subramanian, senior VP of distribution and brand integration for Hilton Hotels noted,"We have reached the point where about 15 percent of bookings are coming through our Web sites and we're getting loyal HHonors [loyalty program] customers, who are the easy group to influence to book online...Going forward to continue to grow Web site and online penetration, we have to clearly recognize that the market is not all the same size and shape."

The micosite inroduction comes on the heels of Hilton's launch of several new online tools at the end of 2005. One lets loyalty group members check in online, another lets small group meeting planners book online, while another allows group meeting planners to view and manage guest lists.

No word yet on Paris' role in the roll-out. I will keep you all posted.

Google agreed to pay up to $90 million to settle a class action case from advertisers who say that fraudulent clicks cost them big bucks. Of course in the time it took to read that last sentence, Google has already made that money back.

Yahoo is still fighting the class action suit, according to eWeek.

Perhaps the search engines will now be more diligent in trying to combat the clickbots and other nefarious agents. The writing is on the wall for most applications of the pay-per-click model. Onless you are only looking for brand awareness, it's hard to justify paying out when you have little guarantee that the clicks are genuine.

So Ev sent me a link that Thomas sent him about the presentation Eric Schmidt gave market analysts during the March 2nd 2006 Google Analyst Day presentation.

Derrick (someone I don't know) did a great job of summarizing the powerpoint presentation but if you want to wade through the entire Google power point presentation then I've made it available for download here.

I didn't bother going through the entire presentation but I did see a few things I found alarming and was just plain shocked that Eric Schmidt even spoke about them in his presentation. I'm beginning to get the heebie jeebies, Microsoft has nothing to fear now that Google's really taking over the evil empire and is publicly announcing their plans for world dominance (via data of course).

Here are some of the quotes that just blew me (jason) away.

As we move toward the "Store 100%" reality, the online copy of your data will become your Golden Copy and your local-machine copy serves more like a cache. An important implication of this theme is that we can make your online copy more secure than it would be on your own machine.

You've got to be kidding me right? Make my pc a cache and Google the real hard drive, um, no. And it's going to be more secure than my machine? Again I say NO!

Another important implication of this theme is that storing 100% of a user's data makes each piece of data more valuable because it can be access across applications. For example: a user's Orkut profile has more value when it's accessible from Gmail (as addressbook), Lighthouse (as access list), etc.

No, it becomes more valuable to Google, not to me. I haven't used Orkut since they launched it and never plan on using it again. I don't want you storing all my information, that's what I have a computer for. I'm a big fan of one-to-one marketing but I'm not interested in saving time while Google gets rich on my data (as I type this I have google desktop running, time to abort!!!)

This foundation and framework will enable Google to set new standards for innovation and comprehensiveness. We plan to:
Get all the worlds information, not just some

Now that's a scarey thought.

Slide 18 discusses the Seven Themes
I'm having flashbacks of the movie Seven with Morgan Freeman. Will Google play the starring role in Seven II?

Now this next piece is interesting to me. First Schmidt talks about working on advancing their user interface and then he discusses building apps that capture places where people spend an inordinate amount of time like email. I thought Google's purpose was to make it easy to find information quickly instead of keeping you locked in for hours on end? Is that why my Google Snippets on top of GMail are becoming more and more commercial? doh!

Its clear to us that we are just at the beginning of meeting our mission of Organizing the worlds information and making it universally accessible and useful...
...Gmail – reinventing email management; email is where consumers spend an inordinate proportion of overall time online

Alright that's enough slamming for now. Be afraid of Google, be very afraid!

Word on the street is that Google may be introducing a so-called Google Drive, or GDrive, allowing all those willing to have their information scanned by Google to use the service as a virtual external hard drive for storage and retrieval.

From Greg Linden

The Slideshow from Google's recent analyst day mentioned Lighthouse and GDrive in the notes to slide 19:

With infinite storage, we can house all user files, including: emails, web history, pictures, bookmarks, etc and make it accessible from anywhere (any device, any platform, etc).

We already have efforts in this direction in terms of GDrive, GDS [Google Desktop Search], Lighthouse, but all of them face bandwidth and storage constraints today.

Another important implication of this theme is that storing 100% of a user's data makes each piece of data more valuable because it can be access across applications. For example: a user's Orkut profile has more value when it's accessible from Gmail (as addressbook), Lighthouse (as access list), etc.

Seems like too much evidence to simply dismiss as interweb rumors...

San Francisco is home to the baseball Giants, who play their home games at (Insert Name Here) Park. The ballpark has had more name changes than Prince, which dilutes the value of the brand and irritates the heck out of fans.

The Giants sold the naming rights to their stadium to Pacific Bell in 2000, which three years later became SBC Park when that company bought Pacific Bell, and this year it will become AT&T Park, as SBC bought that company but assumed its identity.

Today we have the news that AT&T is buying BellSouth. So we'll assume for now that the national company won't change the San Francisco Park name, but what will it do with BellSouth Park, the home of the Chattanooga Lookouts?

I've had it with these corporate-franchise marriages lasting as long as your average Hollywood affair (remember poor Enron Field?). Ballparks, stop selling out to dot-coms or telecoms that are likely to fold or be sold within two years.